14 New Cases Of COVID-19

There are 14 new cases of COVID-19 to report in New Zealand today - nine in MIQ and five in the community.

The five new community cases are all clearly epidemiologically linked to cases that are either epidemiologically or genomically linked to the Auckland cluster.

Two cases are household contacts of previously reported cases, and the other three are all in a household that is linked to an existing case.

Of the nine cases in MIQ facilities, five are in Christchurch, three are in Auckland and one is in Wellington. They are all in strict quarantine arrangements.

The Christchurch MIQ cases are a man in his 20s, a woman in her 30s, two women in their 20s, and a man in his 40s, who all arrived on the same flight from India via Fiji on August 27.

The Auckland MIQ cases are a woman in her 20s and another in her 30s, both of whom arrived from India on August 23. The third MIQ case in Auckland is a woman in her 50s who arrived on August 26 from Qatar.

The final MIQ case is in Wellington – a man in his 50s who arrived on August 18 from the United States and tested positive in routine testing around day 12 of his stay in MIQ.

Since August 11, our contact tracing team has identified 2,743 close contacts of cases, of which 2,676 have been contacted and are self-isolating, and we are in the process of contacting the rest.

As of this morning we have identified 51 close contacts of the Tokoroa health professional who has tested positive for COVID-19. Of those, 48 have already been contacted. They have either already been tested and returned a negative result, or are isolating awaiting a test. The team is continuing to follow up with the remaining three close contacts.

There are 123 people linked to the community cluster who have been transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility, which includes 79 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and their household contacts.

There are 10 people with COVID-19 in hospital today; two in Auckland City, three in Middlemore, three in North Shore, and two in Waikato. Eight people are on a ward, and two are in ICU – one each in Middlemore and Waikato Hospitals.

There are 13 previously reported cases who are considered to have recovered today – all community cases.

With today’s 14 new cases, our total number of active cases is 132. Of those, 33 are imported cases in MIQ facilities, and 99 are community cases.

Our total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 is now 1,401, which is the number we report to the World Health Organization.

Yesterday our laboratories processed 8,599 tests for COVID-19, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 766,626.

NZ COVID Tracer

The NZ COVID Tracer app has reached a significant milestone today, recording over two million registered users, which is equivalent to half the population aged 15 and over.

There have also been an average of more than 1.7 million scans per day over the last week.

This uptake is fantastic. The more people who get into the habit of keeping track of their movements, the easier contact tracing will be.

The Ministry is continuing to receive several thousand QR code requests each day as transport operators work to get their codes in place by September 3.

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